I am newly divorced and very confused. I will do my best to be brief and detailed.

I betrayed my wife's trust by smoking marijuana behind her back. She came home for lunch one afternoon and found me smoking on our back porch while our daughter was napping. She asked me to leave and to find help. She told me that she loved me but wasn't in love with me anymore. She told me that we can start over but I should go spend time alone, to do the growing up I didn't do because marijuana kept me in a complacent haze.
I've been to several Buddhist retreats that have helped me alot. I'm living in Gainesville FL and doing volunteer work for the state parks. I feel really good about myself and I'm happy with this part of my life but I'm starting to feel really lonely. I miss my wife and daughter. I know that things wont get better until my wife is ready to open her heart to me again. I know that there is not a whole lot I can do but be a good father. I know I should be living somewhere closer to my family but I cant afford to live in NYC on my own.
I know that I am being very impatient and it's no longer(and should have never been) about me. I'm so desperate to get one little notion that the healing has begun. I have no more hope and i'm looking for hope.

I want my family back I have this new awesome life I want to share with them.

Why are you not seeing your daughter?

Are you saying your wife divorced you because she caught you smoking weed on the back porch one time? Wives don't kick their husbands out for smoking one time. Wives want their husbands gone so they can carry on an affair.

It doesn't add up. It sounds like that was her excuse to leave you when really she was likely having an affair. Her I love you but I'm not in love with you speech would suggest this.

I don't think a Buddhist retreat is going to help you. You need to find a job and see your daughter for a start.

Have you given up the marijuana?

My bad for not giving details, I often go overboard. The getting caught on our back-porch was the "straw that broke the camels back", btdubs smoking pot is illegal. What if my wife didn't come home and the cops busted down our apartment door, what would happen then, I would get arrested and my daughter would get taken away; I was possessing enough weed for it to be a felony.
I have problems with being empathetic and identifying with other peoples suffering. That's why I went to the retreat. I didn't go because I thought it would fix my marriage. btdubs I learned to control my selfish desires; smoking pot.
Yes I understand that my daughter needs a father and I should be close. But what do you do when you are a stay at home dad and you live in a city you could never afford to live in. I know, how is my wife doing it, she makes good money, she can afford it.
My wife works in her office over 50 hours a week plus after putting our daughter to bed the rest of her night is sitting in front of her laptop on the couch till almost midnight. Now she is also working towards her PhD. I don't think she has time for an affair. Now that hubby/dad/maid/butler is gone she mosdef doesn't have time for an affair.

Yes I did. I smoked for a few months after we split. Then one day I realized that I have to want to quit for myself not for my daughter or my wife or anything else for that matter. I have found work, freelance graphic design.

I'm going back to NYC to see my daughter for two weeks in April.

Hi August, welcome to MArraige Builders. What were her complaints about you besides smoking dope? The way you describe yourself sounds like you have a lack of ambition and focus in life. Was that one of her complaints? If you have a child that you are responsible for, it doesn't make much sense to run off to a Buddhist retreat and do volunteer work. I don't know many adult males who have that kind of luxury. How would you contribute to the support of your child doing that?

So your wife and daughter aren't important enough for you to put aside the hoochie weed?


Is this a regular, full time job?

My wife and daughter are very important to me!I keep trying! I wont give up!
But I have to want to quit for myself, to make myself better or it will never work out.

The graphic design work is part time but its enough to pay my bills and pay for my daughters preschool.

Tell us about the rest of the camel's back. If the dope was the straw that broke it, what was the rest of the load that your wife was unable to put up with any longer?

You mention having been a stay-at-home-dad, and you mention your wife working over 50 hours a week. How did you come to be a SAHD? What work were you doing until you took on the SAH role? Why did you give it up; was it directly to look after the baby, or did you become unemployed? Was your wife enthusiastic about your giving up paid employment? Did she actually want you to be the child's carer, rather than herself or a childminder? Were you actually her first choice of carer, or was it more that you did not earn enough to justify paying for childcare, or that you were already unemployed?

Did she continue to be enthusiastic about your SAH role as the months passed and your daughter went to pre-school?

If none of this was an issue, then please describe the issues that led to the camel's back being broken by the dope-smoking discovery.

That is what we call a freeloaders approach. In a good marriage, a spouse is willing to give up any annoying behavior for the sake of the marriage. You won't be married for long if you refuse to give up anything unless it is "for yourself." I know they talk like that in AA/NA circles, but it is a marriage wrecking idea. And I say this as a recovering alcoholic with 30 years of sobriety.


Can you get a full time job?

I had given in to temptation a few times before and when my wife discovered what I was doing I tried to lie to her about it. I lacked empathy and compassion when it came to the feelings of my wife and daughter. I had trouble sticking to a routine, I am terrible budgeting money, I am a hopeless procrastinator. I am capable of being a responsible person and I can keep it up for a month or so then I start slacking off. I have trouble making things stick and to make things worse I'm an enthusiast and suffer from crippling ADD and have my suspicions that I may be on the autism spectrum.

When I met my wife I was drawing unemployment; I was a mechanical engineer but got laid off due to budget cuts. She encouraged me to continue with getting my masters degree. She told me that she earned enough to support the both of us when we finally decided to move in together. When we found out she was pregnant; planned by the way, we both thought it would be smart for me to be a SAHD while I'm going to school. Our daughter turned out to be a handful, more than I could manage with going to school so I became a full time SAHD. I wanted to be a SAHD and she wanted me to be one too, we both thought it was a very exciting idea. We both agreed that a two income family would mean that our daughter would spend all her time at a daycare or being juggled around family members, we were trying to make sure our daughter had one of us around at all times.
If you asked my wife to give me a performance review she would give me 3-1/2 stars out of 5.
The biggest thing is how I continually broke her trust.

Do you think that you had trouble sticking to a routine because of your pot use? That is typically a symptom of pot smoking. ADD and autism usually help people stick to a routine. Dr Harley considers it a blessing!

My wife was the one who said I shouldn't quit for her or my daughter. I'm the one that realized if I don't do it for myself I will never win back my wife's trust, love and respect.

There is a means to an end here. I think we are splitting hairs here over nothing. We both agree that I should be sober for the sake of my family.

I disagree with NA and AA as well, for similar reasons and for a bunch of other reasons. Nows not the time to share but if your interested in what I have to say let me know.

Congrats on 30!

She probably has bought into the wrong headed notion that a person has to "do it for himself" or it is not legitimate. But like you said, what counts is that you did quit.


And that is the key point.


Thanks!

Actually while I was trying to stick to a routine I was sober. I've been sober since 2011 with a few isolated relapses. Unless you are hinting at what I think, that the last 20 years of abuse caused me to neglect development in time management and other related issues.

Typically, people who have ADD/autism are very routine oriented, whereas pot smokers are the exact opposite. So are you saying that you have trouble sticking to committments/routines while sober?

Yes

August-

Is your problem more with lack of Motivation & Procrastination?

Or is it with Impulse Control and being Easily Distracted?

It doesn't really matter if you have autistic tendencies or if you are ADD. You can learn to compensate for those things.

ADD tends to be very creative. But can also be easily distracted and have impulse control issues.

Someone can have a difficult time prioritizing and focusing with time management, planning, and motivation, but be able to hyper-focus also. You could focus enough to make it through a degree in engineering, so he can hyperfocus on certain things.

The autism side of things sometimes comes out with getting "stuck". So a routine is created to override the toggling system and keep things moving. But the system overreacts easily to a situation of complex stimuli.

Slowly, but surely, you can learn the skills you need to learn. You may need meds also to control the anxiety.

It sounds like your wife needed to be able to count on you and didn't feel like she could.

What kind of work does your wife do?

eta:(I should say EX-wife.)